As a follow on from the findings of the State of the Nation Māori Data Governance 2025 Report, this is one of a series of articles analysing established Māori Data Governance Frameworks with a Te Ao Māori and Data Governance lens.

This article presents a critical analysis of the Te Mana Raraunga The Māori Data Sovereignty Network’s data principles dated around 2016-2018 (and subsequent modifications by others, including this author), examining their historical significance, contemporary limitations, and inadequacy in addressing current digital challenges facing Māori communities.

Through examination of the principles’ development, implementation, and theoretical framework, this study argues that while ground breaking in 2016-2018, the Te Mana Raraunga principles now require substantial revision to address emerging technologies, contemporary governance structures, and evolving understandings of Māori Data Sovereignty and Governance.

This analysis reveals fundamental gaps in consultation processes, technological scope, and enforcement mechanisms that limit the principles’ effectiveness in protecting Māori data rights in the AI and digital age.

Introduction

Māori data sovereignty has emerged as a critical issue in the contemporary digital landscape, with Te Mana Raraunga principles representing the first systematic attempt to articulate Māori data governance frameworks in Aotearoa New Zealand. This article examines the evolution and limitations of these principles from a contemporary Māori Data Governance perspective, situating the analysis within broader frameworks including the Waitangi Tribunal’s WAI 2522 (2023) findings and emerging bespoke Māori data governance models across government, iwi, corporate, and educational sectors.

Analysis

From a Māori data governance standpoint, Te Mana Raraunga principles, the Waitangi Tribunal’s WAI 2522 findings and multiple bespoke Māori Data Governance Frameworks in Government, Iwi, corporates, tech companies and education represent fundamentally different approaches.

WAI 2522 defines Māori Data Sovereignty as Māori Data Governance and affirms that Māori data is a taonga, thereby locating Māori authority within Te Tiriti and engaging Crown obligations. Te Mana Rauranga principles were created by a small group of largely Māori/Indigenous academics and a few Māori IT advocates, with restricted membership and without widespread community or industry consultation.

Since the principal’s creation, the sociotechnical landscape has shifted so quickly that they no longer capture contemporary challenges, including artificial intelligence (AI), AI bias and algorithmic discrimination, model training and analytics, Emerging technologies, hyperscale cloud providers, algorithmic bias, cloud dependency, digital colonialism and environmental impacts. These technologies harvest, process, and monetise Māori data at scale often invisibly raising concerns about representational harms and discriminatory outcomes while also having severe environmental impacts.

In 2016, the Māori data focus was mostly on data in government statistics, research, and repositories. Today, Māori data is everywhere: AI models, algorithmic decision-making, genomic sequencing, biometric surveillance, cloud hosting, digital identity systems. Te Mana Raraunga principles don’t explicitly address these and other risks such as: AI bias, machine learning training sets, predictive policing, or digital colonialism. The principles also did not anticipate cloud monopolies, international hosting, or the Māori call for Māori-controlled/Sovereign  AI and Data servers.

While drawing on international Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDS) discourse, Te Mana Raraunga does not explicitly embed tikanga based decision models for digital contexts (e.g., determining tapū/noa in data architectures and platforms, hapū kawa, notions of mauri, etc).

Additionally, since 2016, Indigenous groups globally (First Nations in Canada, Native American tribes, Aboriginal Australians and Torre Strait Islanders/Asia Indigenous Peoples) have developed legal instruments, policy tools, and digital infrastructures for Indigenous data sovereignty. Compared to these advances, Te Mana Raraunga framework is more static and high-level, rather than dynamic and responsive.

The principles’ emphasis on “national storage” has been superseded by the reality of cloud computing adoption across New Zealand’s public sector. Significant portions of government data, including that held by the Privacy Commission, now reside with United States-headquartered hyperscale providers (Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform) utilising sovereign encryption keys and New Zealand based data centres. Evidence suggests that previously anticipated risks associated with the U.S. Cloud Act have proven minimal, with benefits in hosting, security, cost-effectiveness, and reputational value outweighing initial sovereignty concerns.

Genomic and bio-data developments underscore further urgency. Advances in DNA sequencing, environmental metagenomics, and AI repositories create distinctive tikanga issues for taonga species and whakapapa linked information, demanding biocultural governance that articulates collective decision rights, culturally determined thresholds for consent, conditions on secondary use, and appropriate integration with AI systems.

Te Ao Māori

In te Ao Māori, other risks associated with the principles are that they appear prescribed, ambiguous, and Eurocentric, vis-à-vis the diversity of tikanga and kawa across whānau, hapū, and iwi.

While “mana” is fundamental in Māori ethics, it is not a Te Tiriti term for sovereignty, which more precisely resides in the terms rangatiratanga and or mana motuhake, concepts that ground sovereignty and self-governance and are entrenched in Te Tiriti and Tikanga. Mana I te whenua is a term used for sovereignty in He Whakaputanga which has a strong emphasis on hapū . If Te Mana Raraunga were named Te Mana I te Raraunga, this would be more authoritative and would reflect that Māori have sovereignty over the data that represents them, as Māori are the data, the data is Māori.

Principle 1 is called Rangatiratanga and translated as Authority, adding to the ambiguity. The Principle Whakapapa is translated as Relationships and Principle Whanaungatanga as Obligations. Whakapapa is usually translated as genealogy and whanaungatanga as relationships. All of the other principles appear to overlap each other causing further confusion with Māori communities and Māori language speakers.

Structurally the principals have an emphasis on iwi and collective rights over individual rights, and has tended to eclipse other critical Māori social formations such as hapū, whānau, marae, and associated trusts and organisations, through which authority is traditionally and contemporarily exercised in Māori communities.

Te Mana Raraunga principles “stress control but not equitable benefit sharing or Māori participation in the data economy” and don’t provide concrete mechanisms for implementation.

Relatedly, as Māori data becomes a high-value asset in AI training, analytics, and innovation markets, the dominant emphasis on “control” must be complemented by enforceable benefit-sharing and durable Māori participation in value creation.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) was referenced in the principles but it is not clear how it relates. The framework remains unconnected to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and other legal instruments, limiting its application for Māori data governance and utu.

Implementation  

Despite some of the key authors affiliations with Waikato University, the University of Waikato does not formally recognise Māori Data Sovereignty in their public policies.

The principles have not been implemented across government (central/local), most iwi/hapū/marae, businesses, or organisations. While primarily influential in academic discourse with over 636 citations in Google Scholar, the principals are largely not implemented in practice.

Recommendations

This analysis supports the development of new, dynamic Māori data governance models characterised by several key features:

1. Frameworks are tailored to specific organisations and industries, aligned with organisational values and developed in partnership with relevant Māori stakeholders.
2. Models reflecting mana motuhake and rangatiratanga principles rather than prescribed Western conceptual frameworks are created for guidelines.
3. Responsive, adaptive frameworks grounded in tikanga that can evolve with technological and social change.
4. Authoritative frameworks addressing contemporary challenges including artificial intelligence, algorithmic decision-making, and emerging digital technologies.
5. Ensuring Māori communities function as active architects of data futures rather than passive recipients of digital transformation.

Conclusion

Te Mana Raraunga principles were ground breaking when introduced in 2016–2018, placing Māori Data Sovereignty on the national and international agenda. Yet, in today’s environment of new technologies such as AI, Hyperscale Cloud, genomics and many new technologies, etc, the principals are insufficient. Their aspirational nature, limited consultation base, and lack of implementation leave Māori vulnerable to ongoing digital colonialism and technological exploitation.

Future Māori data governance must move beyond high-level principles toward binding, tikanga-based systems. These should draw on the tribunal’ authority of WAI 2522, the cultural foundations of tikanga Māori, and the practical guidance of new Māori Data Governance models. Importantly, governance must be dynamic, evolving with emerging technologies and grounded in iwi, hapū, whānau, marae and hāpori Māori authority.

Māori Data Sovereignty is not only about preventing harm but ensuring Māori are active architects of their digital futures, securing tino rangatiratanga and mana motuhake in the data age.

 

Other Bespoke Māori Data Governance Frameworks

1. AKO
2. ARA Journeys – The Whakapapa Tech Stack 
3. AWS New Zealand 
4. Catalyst NZ 
5. Crop and Food
6. Deloitte
7. Iwi such as Ngāti Whakauae and Rangitāne o Wairarapa
8. Microsoft New Zealand with Te Tumu Paeroa
9. Ngāti Toa and ITeam (Oracle) The Five S’s https://teamcloud.nz/home-page
10. ONE NZ https://content.vodafone.co.nz/a1/95/2bf57815403693de5895c23f7bec/vodafone-new-zealand-honouring-the-principles-of-te-tiriti-o-waitangi-policy-bi-lingual-final.pdf
11. Payments NZ https://www.apicentre.paymentsnz.co.nz/standards/using-standards/nga-tohu-arahi-api-centre-data-handling-guidelines/
12. Te Pūkenga Te Pūkenga – Privacy Policy “Respect of Māori data sovereignty when using (or sharing) personal data“https://yourvoice.tepukenga.ac.nz/en-GB/pages/privacy-policy
13. Spark
14. Whare Hauora – Māori data sovereignty in practice – from Governance to Operations and Why

Legal Instruments

Including, but not limited to

1. Customer and Product Data Act 2025
2. Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Act 2023
3. Education and Training Act 2020
4. Hauora: Outcomes Kaupapa Inquiry (WAI 2575)
5. He Whakaputanga/The Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand (1835)
6. Ko Aotearoa Tēnei: A Report into Claims concerning New Zealand Law and Policy Affecting Māori Culture and Identity, Taumata I and II WAI 262
7. Legal Personhood Mount Taranaki Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill
8. Legal Personhood Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Bill
9. Legal Personhood Te Urewera Act 2014
10. Māori Language Act 1987
11. New Zealand Biometric Processing Privacy Code 2025
12. Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022
13. Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022
14. Pae Ora Strategies
15. Plant Variety Rights Act 2022
16. Privacy Act 2020
17. Supreme Court Judgement Peter Hugh McGregor Ellis v The King – SC 49/2019
18. Te Tiriti o Waitangi 1840
19. The Data and Statistics Act 2022
20. The Report on the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Wai 2252
21. The Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975/ Te Ture mō Te Reo Māori 2016/the Māori Language Act 2016 (2016 No 17)
22. United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2007 that New Zealand. The New Zealand government announced its support for the Declaration in April 2010 at the United Nations

Disclaimer: Image created in ChatGPT 4.0 on September 19, 2025 using prompt “Ai generated image. Prompt create an image of Aotearoa new Zealand using binary code and Māori art”.